Author – Dr Amritpal Kaur

Sexuality is one’s capacity for sexual feelings. It is experienced and expressed in thoughts, fantasies, desires, beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviour, practices, and relationships. When allowed to develop in a healthy and constructive way, positive sexuality has the ability to build a harmonious atmosphere among gender divisions and create a healthy society. Managing sexual thoughts and feelings is directly related with the morality of an individual which is more or less linked with religious beliefs. How religion manages morality, actually gives a true picture of the society we live in.

Sexuality and sexual orientation are a very intrinsic part of an individual which never leaves an individual.

Sexuality and reproduction are the fundamental elements in human interaction. A society’s sexual norms i.e., standards of sexual conduct are linked to religious beliefs. Most of the religions have developed a moral code covering the issues of marriage, morality, ethics, sin, choice of marital partner, the pattern of sexual behaviour, attitude towards pregnancy, contraception and premarital sex which deeply affect the sexual attitudes of their followers. A universal feature of the religions around the world is sexual conservatism i.e., to enforce conservative attitudes about sex for the purpose of encouraging its members to pursue a lifestyle that is conducive to raising families thus limiting sex to procreation. Most religious morals are confined to proper guarding of sexual expression within the security of committed and religiously sanctioned unions. All faiths condemn pre-marital sex, especially women who indulge in pre-marital sex are termed as loose women, affecting their chances of getting married. All Religions in one way or the other are in conflict between the divine and the feminine that has resulted in the occultation of the feminine principle by trying to veil it, hide it, mask it or demean it. There is a generalized phobic attitude towards a woman’s sexuality especially in public spaces and also a stringent expectation of female modesty which if let loose has the potential to disrupt the complete universe. Demeaning terms like women are a gateway to hell, devil’s gateway or vagina is a temple built over a sewer, and have a religious sanction. In our mythologies, women have either been expressed as apsaras or nymphomaniacs or seductresses or completely asexual beings in the form of devoted and submissive wives and virgin daughters. Nowhere in religious texts, the sexuality of a woman has been accepted as an intrinsic part of her female existence. A male counterpart of a seductress in religious mythologies is nowhere to be seen. Buddha never damned women that she is a temptation to man to do evil nor did he regard them as naturally wicked.

He says that if people are warned to avoid a precipice, it doesn’t mean that there is something intrinsically wrong about the precipice. If some people cannot see a precipice without wishing to throw themselves down, it is not the precipice that is to be blamed, but their bad circulation and it is wise that such people should avoid precipices.

Similarly, if some men cannot see a woman without devilish thoughts in their minds, women are not to be blamed. Men should guide their thoughts and not women, while other religions claim that women must be controlled so that men can control themselves.

It has been taught to women in almost all religions that God views sex or a woman’s sexuality in a negative way. Women with higher religiosity and lower sexual permissiveness are considered to be moral and this attitude directly impacts sexual self-esteem or the way in which an adult woman subjectively experiences her sexuality.

Women are never able to embrace their sexualities in a natural way rather feeling ashamed of their sexuality is the norm of our society. Her sexuality has been negated by all religions as something sinful and is meant to be controlled for the benefit of men which leaves women guilty conscious most of their lives. Religious morality fails to see sex and sexuality as a sign that human beings are social creatures in need of companionship, friendship and close relationships. Sex having a symbolic meaning signifying human existence as being in fellow humanity, does not fit in the confined morality of most of religions.

What is the stand of Buddhism on sexuality? Buddhism has a very liberal attitude towards sexuality as there is no concept of sin and guilt in Buddhism. Sex in general is not considered a sin in Buddhism. Sin is considered in other religions as an insult to God, a violation of what God demands of us. A sin carries much more gravity than simply doing something that harms someone else or something which we regret doing. Religious people tend to believe that they will be punished by God if they step outside the sphere of sin. The notion of sin has been widely used and abused by clerics and priests who know how to squeeze every last drop of advantage out of religion, as a source of fear especially women who tend to outnumber men in all religious places.

Buddhism has a basis in strong and clear ethical principles and these need to be clarified to understand Buddhism and sexuality. Buddhist ethics in a nutshell is based on two key concepts along with their opposites:- Non-harm and Skill.

Some actions are harmful in that they cause suffering or disharmony, whereas some are non harming or beneficial in that they bring good things like joy and peace. Skill is fixed at the intentional level, at the level of thoughts, so skill is the inner view while non harming is the outer view. Buddhist ethics extend to what we are thinking and does not merely stop at what God demands of us.

The most commonly observed precepts in Buddhism are:-

1. To refrain from killing living
2. To refrain from taking what is
3. To refrain from sexual
4. To refrain from false
5. To refrain from consuming alcohol and drugs that cause

Buddha says: ” Avoid all evils, Do good, purify the mind.” Avoiding all evils refers to following the good acts that create benefits for all which eventually purifies the mind of unskillful thoughts and slowly enables one to learn to be skilful in one’s thinking.

Buddhism does not have arbitrary prohibitions, generally called victimless crimes like homosexuality or performing self-satisfying sexual acts because they themselves do not harm and are not necessarily unskillful. Sexual misconduct like rape, adultery, sex with a child in which harmony of standing human relations is violated i.e the circumstances in which sexuality leads to harmful results must be avoided. The sexual act in itself is never regarded as harmful or unskillful in Buddhism, the problem is rather we do have ways of using sex harmfully and also wrapping sex in many layers of unskillful thoughts. Buddhism helps us to understand where the real problems arise so that we may avoid them in the future.

Buddhist ethics are grounded in personal choice. Most faiths assume that without God there can be no morality. If there is no god watching, what incentives would they have to observe ethics at all? The whole concept of morality is related to incentives from God, and not for the general well being of an individual and humanity in general. Ethical behaviour in Buddhism comes from personal choice i.e from personal views and is not divinely ordained. The degree of the vow depends largely on your wisdom, aided by Buddhist teachings. The concept of good and evil people is also foreign to Buddhism. It is basically the battle between skillfulness and unskillfulness. The harm or benefit we do to others is actually how skillful our thinking is and how much effort we put toward the perfection of character including the strength of our vows. Buddhism is not a cookie-cutter religion in which everyone is expected to have the same behaviour, understanding or practices. It provides choice but most importantly the means for fully investigating those choices so that they are made with due deliberation on the basis of Buddhist wisdom.

Buddhism is about the perfection of character. All the features of a perfected human character come together from mastering the skill of life in one’s thoughts and actions which decides one’s karma i.e the intentional action, not fate. Buddhism refines the idea of skill to a point that it can in principle advise almost all our thoughts and activities, even the smallest. Skill in Buddhism is not a matter of imposing arbitrary judgements or even societal norms on people’s behaviours. It’s not a matter of making one feel guilty about one’s unskillful thoughts and actions. Infact guilt is itself recognised in Buddhism as a kind of unskillful thought as a form of aversion. Skill is rather a basis for understanding our mind and how it goes awry and with this understanding to make more rational choices for the benefit of all.

Mindfulness practices (samma samadhi) settle your mind like a clear forest pool in which you see every ripple, every little fish or pebble. As your practice and wisdom deepen you begin to appreciate that what ties these unskillful thoughts together is the Ego, the abiding delusion that you are a separate self. Our self-centeredness underlies our stress, the way we misperceive in our search for personal advantage and become confused, this gives rise to greed and we deviate from the path of service to self, resulting in harmful actions. If one keeps entertaining unskillful thoughts, one will keep acting on them over and over, thus reinforcing all these factors on their character. Our job is not to memorize what is skillful and unskillful but to learn to recognize skill and non skill in our own experience. Buddhist views on sexuality can be understood best within the frame of Buddhist morality which is built by one’s efforts to achieve perfection in character. Buddhism distinguishes between lust from pleasure which other religions fail to notice. Lust is painful whereas pleasure, although an object of lust, is pleasurable. Lust that seeks pleasure is not problematic in itself. Both tend to condition each other and together they form a cycle. Because of their intimate association in that cycle they are confused with one another. Addiction or misguided lust is when this cycle spins out of control. The failure to properly understand the cycle of lust and pleasure and to recognize what is the actual problem leading to sexual misconduct.

Buddhism allows all the possibilities to explore one’s sexuality within its moral framework. Universal morality being at the nucleus of Buddha’s teachings allows ample opportunities to correct the conditions both social as well as individualistic that lead to sexual misconducts like rapes, gang rapes, marital rape, domestic abuse, child abuse, eve-teasing, groping, caste-based sexual exploitations, and many more. Buddhism allows sexual freedom to women by not only freeing their sexuality and procreative abilities from strict patriarchal and ritualistic codes but also by upholding their right to choose. At the same time, Buddhism helps them to become guilt-free regarding their life choices. Buddhism, being a mind transforming religion, serves as the most suitable ground for initiating sexual revolution especially by Dalit women who need it the most. Sexual revolution needs a revolution of the mind, and a revolution or revolution of mind is only possible in Buddhism. Sexual revolution must either precede or must be included intrinsically in the Dalit revolution.

References:

1. The Essence of Buddhism by P. Lakshmi Narasu

2. Sex, Sin and Zen by Brad Warner

3. Headscarves and Hymens by Mona Eltahawy

About the author – Dr Amritpal Kaur is an oral n dental surgeon practising in Jalandhar, Punjab.